«I saw Albanese’s film with tears in my eyes» explains the emotional mayor of Crognaleto, Orlando Persia, speaking of his two multi-classes of 15 students spread between first and fifth grade. The similarities with “A world apart” are “incredible”: “Here too we fight to find children so that the school remains in place, because without it the entire country dies.” There were tears at the cinema for those passages “in which the community of intent between teachers, mayor and community is highlighted, all together to save the institution, to increase the number of children: it is a perennial struggle”. And here too, in Crognaleto, a mountain municipality of 1,200 inhabitants which has long been subject to depopulation due to earthquakes, they looked for Ukrainian children «but it wasn’t easy, we also tried as in Milani’s film but we didn’t have it done, it should be underlined that prejudices still arise against us, towards an area considered disadvantaged but this is not the case”.
A world apart, the film shot in the Park: Virginia Raffaele and Albanese in Pescasseroli for the Abruzzo preview
The similarities
Then the similarities with the film don’t end there: «There are many, like that of the teachers and collaborators who come to the aid of those who have problems with the snow». The multi-classes have been carrying out their activities for more than 17 years but their existence is at risk like that of the country, the two realities are intimately connected. There is also some skepticism on the part of professionals. The teaching organization by the two teachers is exemplary among the children of different ages and grades “they have learned well from their experience how to manage the situation”. Currently among the students there is only one of foreign origin, a Romanian: «For us it is an anomaly – continues the mayor – because until yesterday there were many Macedonian children, Romanians themselves, North Africans who repopulated the classes, starting at the same time a wonderful integration at an extracurricular level with their families, a wealth for all of us.”
Except that as the kids grow up they go to school in Teramo, losing their original contact with the town. There was talk of prejudices towards the mountains: «We are not at all as behind as some believe or paint us» is Persia’s dignified spirit of revenge. Which also claims wise administration even after the seismic events when kids from Tottea and Nerito were welcomed by us “and didn’t want to leave”. Furthermore, those who leave the mountain school are «prepared, well educated and educated, even having the privilege of having a teacher per student, here no one is left behind; there are many ways to recover even outside of the ringing of the bell: scholastic preparation, together with human preparation, is always optimal”. If the school, in the film directed by Riccardo Milani, was named after a shepherd-poet, here it is instead dedicated to a teacher-mayor, Alfredo Quaranta.
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